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Indiana University 
to learn something about the simplest forms of business and 
to prepare themselves for the exercise of political power.”^ 
One of the first to raise a dissenting voice in Indiana was 
George W. Julian. During the late summer and autumn of 1 
1865, this well-known radical waged a vigorous campaign for ' 
negro suffrage in his district in eastern Indiana. On the even- I 
ing of November 17, 1865, he delivered before a large audience ! 
in the hall of the House of Representatives at Indianapolis j 
an address entitled, ‘‘Dangers and Duties of the Hour’h No !| 
one was left in doubt as to his position. Few men in his own j 
party at that time in the state or elsewhere would have gone i 
as far as Julian went in this address. The two policies advo- 
cated were the execution of the leaders of the Confederacy ; 
and the enfranchisement of the negro. He declared : 
I would hang liberally while I had my hand in; I would make the 
gallows respectable. I would dispose of a score or two of the mosc con- 
spicuous of the rebel leaders, not for vengeance, but to satisfy public 
justice, and make expensive the enterprise of treason, for all time to 
come. I wish we might hang them to the sky that bends over us, so that 
all the nations of the earth might see the spectacle, and learn what it 
costs to set fire to a free government like this.^ 
On the subject of negro suffrage, he spoke at great length, 
favoring it for the following reasons. Negroes had voted in 
several northern states before the Civil War. They had 
helped to save the Union. The South would have increased 
representation in Congress, even without permitting negroes 
to vote. The negroes needed the ballot in order to protect 
themselves against discriminating laws. The way to fit them 
to vote was to place the ballot in their hands. Finally, he 
favored it because every “rebel” in the South and every “cop- 
perhead” in the North opposed it.® 
It will be remembered that negroes did not possess the fran- 
chise in Indiana at this time. It may well be doubted whether 
Julian voiced the sentiments of a majority of Indiana Repub- 
licans. “The burden of his address”, commented the Indian- 
apolis Journal, “was the wonderful properties of negro suf- 
frage as a national cure-all. The member of the Burnt 
District thinks the country will go straight to damnation with- 
out the colored ballot. He is welcome to his opinions.”® 
^William Dudley Foulke, Life of Oliver P. Morton (Indianapolis, 1899), I, 486. 
^George W. Julian, Speeches on Political Questions (New York, 1872), 268. 
^Ihid., 270-279. 
® Indianapolis Daily Journal, November 18, 1865. 
